… with comments

My Last Reply to the Anonymous Kirk Princess Tush

I have not wanted to bog us down here in the Wood with much reporting of what is going on at Vision 20/20 Moscow, Idaho. However, let me share what will likely be my final reply to the anonymous Christ Church apologist. I do want to express my appreciation of the Princess’ willingness to attempt any kind of rational dialog, which is a far different approach from the irrational insults other kirk apologists give us here in our local ‘mission field’ of North Idaho.

Here’s part 8 from my recent round of replies, and likely my last:

December 17, 2006

The anonymous Princess Tush of the Kirk now writes:

The book reveals to us a worship scene in Heaven, taking place in the immediate presence of God. There “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Does that sound to you like an imprecatory prayer? It does to me. In the one place where the Greek scriptures show us by far the most detailed description of worship, imprecatory prayer is part of that worship. The prayer is offered up by human beings — the disembodied souls of martyrs, to be sure, but they are no omniscient than we are — and they are calling for God’s vengeance upon certain evil men who have persecuted Christ’s church.

Princess, I’m getting the distinct impression that you have never had any intention to carefully read the replies to you or the arguments elsewhere on this topic. I alone have repeatedly mentioned the important and very clear distinction (no, chasm) between Doug Wilson’s critics and literal enemies who are murdering and mutilated innocent people, innocent people who are seeking peace with all men and doing nothing to arrogantly provoke the violence. Brutal, violent men who unceasingly ravage, murder, and torture innocent, peace-loving people are a class of people the historical Christian may wish to see punished and forced to stop their cruelty via vengeful retaliation from the appropriate authority—in this case God’s providential judgment procured through innocent prayer. This is no different than the scenario you give here from the book of Revelations.

On a Christian reading of this text, there would be additional eschatological issues to consider, and the fact that these people are not on earth—don’t know about the “disembodied souls” stuff—will certainly make for a different narrative context for their action and prayer. However, these other considerations do not matter, since this prototypical imprecation from Revelations is already limited to the clear case of people desiring vengeful punishment against those who shed innocent “blood.”

And this is precisely what is so perverse about the liturgy of violence in the Kirk: they create the enemy so that they can slaughter the enemy through their prayers of bloodshed, prayers against those who have not shed any blood and my not have even picked the fight (Wilson’s “war”) to begin with. If I were you, I would fear that I was the kind of person on the receiving end of these kinds of prayers from heaven.

Let me be clear Princess: your attempt at defending this kind of liturgical violence against your local, peaceful neighbors who happen to merely criticize you for things just like this nonsense of imprecatory prayer is vile; it is very vile. It is evil in fact. It is a mangling of Christian history, the Christian text, the Christian story, and all common moral sense. What you perversely call “mature” Christianity here, that “immature” folks like myself just “don’t get” for some reason, is actually a demonic eye towards the very destruction of those social traits that any stable civilization must maintain. This is madness.

Your kirk flippancy towards all us “immature” people strikes at the foundations of higher learning, the possibility of fruitful discussion, and, in fact, our American legal and political traditions—I suspect that if your teaching spread through American Fundamentalism and took root that we would have to pass laws against what you are here advocating. Considering this, and your clear disinterest in listening to the arguments from those who disagree with you, the social madness of your “Christian” proposal, and your very strange desire to remain fully anonymous, this will likely be my last words to you.

Your attempt at trying to win back the favor of your local non-Christian neighbors is curious, but typical of the Kirk.

About Pooh’s Think With Comments

UPDATE (9/07): Mr. Metzler has again claimed that he supports open dialogue, and again he refusesto open his site to comments. I challenge him to do so.

Michael Metzler is the author of Pooh’s Think. He claims that he promotes open dialogue, but he blocks all comments on his blog. This blog was not for the webmaster to comment on Mr. Metzler’s behavior, but rather to allow anyone to comment.

This page consisted totally of Mr. Metzler’s own blog posts, republished here so that discussion can take place. Nothing was added or deleted. Comments are totally unmoderated and will stay that way. Pages will no longer be updated on a regular basis.